Buildings in central Cambridge were evacuated after a skip fire probably caused by a discarded cigarette.

The blaze was in a car park at CATS College, the international boarding school.

Police helped firefighters to clear a 400-square-metre area around Round Church Street on Tuesday evening and some roads were closed.

Ben Fawcitt, fire service crew commander, said: “The smoke was thick and acrid from materials inside the skip and it meant that several premises from the surrounding area had to be evacuated and some roads closed.

“This incident highlights how important it is to keep skips away from buildings and vehicles where possible to ensure the utmost safety of those in the nearby area.

“It is likely the cause of the fire was a discarded cigarette. We would ask people not to throw cigarettes in bins or skips as it often results in an unnecessary fire.

“Make sure they are properly extinguished and disposed off safely.”

Park Street multi-storey car park was temporarily shut because of the blaze and firefighters, police officers, PCSOs and city council staff manned its entrances to stop people returning to their vehicles.

Sean Cleary, operations manager for parking services at the city council, said its CCTV team had spotted smoke in the car park and staff from the parking services operations team dashed over to find the fire service already on-site.

He said: “We have got very clear procedures for managing all our car parks in the case of emergencies of this nature.

“On the request of the fire brigade, we closed the car park to allow the smoke to move away. Twenty minutes later, the car park was put back into operation.”